Stats, TY, Solar qualify for IEM Katowice (KR qualifier #1)

The IEM Katowice qualifiers continued with the first Korean server qualifier, with Stats, TY, and Solar winning round-of-24 seeds at the main event in February (alongside travel and accommodation). Two more qualifiers remain, with the EU server qualifier (Jan 13-14) awarding three seeds while Korean server qualifier #2 (Jan 15-16) will award two seeds.

IEM Katowice will be held between February 24th and March 1st, and will be the inaugural event of the ESL Pro Tour—the official successor to the prior World Championship Series system.

Reynor, Maru, and Zest won seeds in the prior NA server qualifier. Dark, the 2019 WCS Global Champion, has received an automatic seed. Players who do not earn seeds through the qualifiers will still be eligible to play in the live "open bracket" portion of IEM Katowice (Ro76).

Solar and Stats just never fall off, TYs results are surprising, great showing from him. Shocked Rogue went out without winning a single series against Taeja and sOs. Dream killed by Time and Armani, that gotta sting.

Is there ever a big patch that Solar isn't really good in from launch?He can also change the meta sometimes. These are some of the things people use to defend MVP as goat, the creativity and adaptability.I remember early LotV, where Solar was the best. He said in an interview after winning a tournament that he isn't the best player, he just had more practice with the changes to the game. The other players would overcome him when they had played a bit more.

Perfekt racial distribution so far. Balanced game ? :DImpressed with Taeja, hope he keeps improving. But Rogue really disappointed in both qualifiers. At the beginning of a new patch there are always some players that shine within the chaos, TLO often was one of them, Solar, too.

I've got to say that the Korean qualifiers really don't seem as scary as they used to. It's probably partly because many top players are foreigners now, but I mean... No-one seems beast mode other than Dark really, and there are a lot of fillers (no offense intended but players like Zoun, Dream, Armani, DRG, Ragnarok are examples).

In the early years of SC2 players like that were good to see in things like Proleague because although they weren't necessarily individual title contenders, they could always pull a bo1 or bo3 upset. I remember having similar feelings about players like Yongwha for instance.

It'll be interesting to see whether the next 3 years underpinned by some guaranteed funding can bring some freshness to the scene!

On January 10 2020 07:01 Drfilip wrote:Is there ever a big patch that Solar isn't really good in from launch?He can also change the meta sometimes. These are some of the things people use to defend MVP as goat, the creativity and adaptability.I remember early LotV, where Solar was the best. He said in an interview after winning a tournament that he isn't the best player, he just had more practice with the changes to the game. The other players would overcome him when they had played a bit more.

It wasn't the case with this patch.Solar was looking absolute top tier before that and he doesn't seem as strong now, despite qualifying today(Aligulac can confirm).

I've got to say that the Korean qualifiers really don't seem as scary as they used to. It's probably partly because many top players are foreigners now, but I mean... No-one seems beast mode other than Dark really, and there are a lot of fillers (no offense intended but players like Zoun, Dream, Armani, DRG, Ragnarok are examples).

In the early years of SC2 players like that were good to see in things like Proleague because although they weren't necessarily individual title contenders, they could always pull a bo1 or bo3 upset. I remember having similar feelings about players like Yongwha for instance.

It'll be interesting to see whether the next 3 years underpinned by some guaranteed funding can bring some freshness to the scene!

Its not that the field is weak nowadays it is normal, go back to 2015 or farther back and the lineup of players (scary as they were) were not full of champions. The lineup in korea got scarier and scarier because new players kept taking championships. 2017 GSL RO16 was basically filled with champions, they can't all be title contenders but they were often conceived as everyone being such because almost all of them had shown they were good enough to reach a finals or win a championship.

The players now are conceived as being weak because they aren't champions but really it has been abnormal to have so many title contenders and it has only been possible because the scene has lived for so long and the players kept playing for a long time.

On January 10 2020 06:37 Shuffleblade wrote:Solar and Stats just never fall off, TYs results are surprising, great showing from him. Shocked Rogue went out without winning a single series against Taeja and sOs. Dream killed by Time and Armani, that gotta sting.

What is surprising about TY's results?

He ended last season in good shape, taking 2nd place at Super Tournament #2. Then he advanced in the stacked WESG qualifier. Then he almost qualified in the NA Katowice qualifier, losing only to Zest after that odd opener against MaSa.

Since the big patch, TY is 75–34 (68.81%) in games and 31–7 (81.58%) in matches.

"I saw what sneakyfox wrote on TL.net and it made me furious" - PartinG

Perfekt racial distribution so far. Balanced game ? :DImpressed with Taeja, hope he keeps improving. But Rogue really disappointed in both qualifiers. At the beginning of a new patch there are always some players that shine within the chaos, TLO often was one of them, Solar, too.

In before EU ZvZ slugfest

TheDougler is the master of signature bets, he is the two-time Blizzcon SigBet Champ. Also, Serral let me down.

Really surprised neither Rogue or Trap managed to qualify, surprised about TY managing to qualify. Surprised that the best TvTer Cure, lose to Taeja. Overall Really scary line up of players. Korea is just staked

On January 10 2020 06:37 Shuffleblade wrote:Solar and Stats just never fall off, TYs results are surprising, great showing from him. Shocked Rogue went out without winning a single series against Taeja and sOs. Dream killed by Time and Armani, that gotta sting.

What is surprising about TY's results?

He ended last season in good shape, taking 2nd place at Super Tournament #2. Then he advanced in the stacked WESG qualifier. Then he almost qualified in the NA Katowice qualifier, losing only to Zest after that odd opener against MaSa.

Since the big patch, TY is 75–34 (68.81%) in games and 31–7 (81.58%) in matches.

Yeah you are right, nothing is surprising, its just me that haven't followed the scene so closely recently =P Thanks for the update.

TY qualifying is not that surprising considering he is the 2nd best terran atm. I guess people forgot him because only Maru managed to qualify for BlizzCon as KR terran, and INno was the one playing in Nation Wars, so they didn't see TY for a long ass time.

What impresses me the most though, is Cure ability to look like a beast in KungFuCup/Olimoleague, yet fail to deliver when it matters once again. He can still qualify and finally become the next ByuN but he might keep choking in important tournaments / qualifiers. Sad.

On January 10 2020 15:50 dbRic1203 wrote:Realy happy for TY and Solar. Trap had almost as bad of a time as soo, he also lost only to those guys, who qualified later on..I hope at least one or both of them make it in KR qualifier 2

indeed! i want them both to qualify, along with Innovation or Taeja.gotta keep the 1 terran 1 zerg 1 protoss ratio from the first two qualifiers :D

On January 10 2020 15:50 dbRic1203 wrote:Realy happy for TY and Solar. Trap had almost as bad of a time as soo, he also lost only to those guys, who qualified later on..I hope at least one or both of them make it in KR qualifier 2

indeed! i want them both to qualify, along with Innovation or Taeja.gotta keep the 1 terran 1 zerg 1 protoss ratio from the first two qualifiers :D

The 2nd kr qualifier is only giving 2 spots. And Teaja Inno are both not in shape to get top 2 super easily. They d have to pull some upsets to get there. Especially if some top foreigners are signing up there as wellE.: and I doubt that there is going to be a Korean qualifying thru tue EU qualifier. The ping is going to be horrible and there are just 2 spots besides Serral. And on top of the EU Players, there are also still Neeb and Special. It s going to be pretty stacked

On January 10 2020 15:50 dbRic1203 wrote:Realy happy for TY and Solar. Trap had almost as bad of a time as soo, he also lost only to those guys, who qualified later on..I hope at least one or both of them make it in KR qualifier 2

indeed! i want them both to qualify, along with Innovation or Taeja.gotta keep the 1 terran 1 zerg 1 protoss ratio from the first two qualifiers :D

The 2nd kr qualifier is only giving 2 spots. And Teaja Inno are both not in shape to get top 2 super easily. They d have to pull some upsets to get there. Especially if some top foreigners are signing up there as wellE.: and I doubt that there is going to be a Korean qualifying thru tue EU qualifier. The ping is going to be horrible and there are just 2 spots besides Serral. And on top of the EU Players, there are also still Neeb and Special. It s going to be pretty stacked

actually Taeja looked solid lately, but if you insist than cure, who's doing great right now, is another option.ofc, there are the offline qualifiers as well. surely SOME koreans will attend, specially those from chinese team?

On January 10 2020 15:50 dbRic1203 wrote:Realy happy for TY and Solar. Trap had almost as bad of a time as soo, he also lost only to those guys, who qualified later on..I hope at least one or both of them make it in KR qualifier 2

indeed! i want them both to qualify, along with Innovation or Taeja.gotta keep the 1 terran 1 zerg 1 protoss ratio from the first two qualifiers :D

The 2nd kr qualifier is only giving 2 spots. And Teaja Inno are both not in shape to get top 2 super easily. They d have to pull some upsets to get there. Especially if some top foreigners are signing up there as wellE.: and I doubt that there is going to be a Korean qualifying thru tue EU qualifier. The ping is going to be horrible and there are just 2 spots besides Serral. And on top of the EU Players, there are also still Neeb and Special. It s going to be pretty stacked

Showtime, Gabe, Elazer, ...

With a 300ms ping, I doubt Koreans will advance, but it is possible. In the last stacked tournament (HSC 20) all foreigners performed pretty poorly (besides the obvious two)

That leaves only 2 more direct spots, favorites are soO, Trap I guess.All the others have to go through the gauntlet of the open bracket. TL will surely bring Taeja. Curious to see if the Chinese teams will bring their stars

TheDougler is the master of signature bets, he is the two-time Blizzcon SigBet Champ. Also, Serral let me down.

On January 10 2020 19:22 Argonauta wrote:Really surprised neither Rogue or Trap managed to qualify, surprised about TY managing to qualify. Surprised that the best TvTer Cure, lose to Taeja. Overall Really scary line up of players. Korea is just staked

It's not stacked with monsters like it was before, now it's stacked with a bunch of equally-bad players. Anyone can lose to anyone.